I recently converted all my GW paints into dropper bottles. I had over 120 that I had to do. I put a glass agitator in every single one. It took my three hobby nights and I was having a blast! I loved it. They look great on the shelf. They take up alot less room. I used flow improver to make the process faster and in so doing I thinned my paints perfectly. I waste ZERO paint now. With the pots I always get that ring of dried paint. I would scoop to much out with my brush. I never could measure the amount of one color to another accurately.... All those issues fixed with three nights of hobby time!?!? 100% done. I got those dropper bottles. They are perfect. I skipped the funnel. Skipped the pin squeeze thing. I got my paint to a good consistency with flow improver and just poured each one in! Dropped an agitator in. And tipped the top in paint to see the color on my shelf! Cost me $20
I had a new runelord brass that was separated and like stiff jelly. Month later I'm still trying to shake and slowly add medium to it and see if I can salvage. Thanks gw
My best advice for super glue: keep it in the fridge! It never hardens at low temperature, and the tube/bottle stays cool so you can keep it a few minutes uncapped without fearing for the glue to dry inside. I still use the same tube since almost a year and it's still ready to use (almost empty now though... :p ). No more waste throwing away a dry half-full tube ^^
@@GRRAB the neat part is that the glue doesnt dry clogging the cap, it stays cleanly sealed so fume cant get released. I also suspect that the fume comes from the solidification reaction with the air, which doesnt happen at all at fridge temperature so the fume might not happen in the first place, but to be safe i always put it inside a box on the topper part of the fridge since the fume is lighter than air and would stay on top without touching the food until released when the door is opened.
yes, we use it for my job and that is exactly how you do it. To be even surer about the fumes you can put it in a plastic sealed small bag. It never caused any issues though even without
Food for thought with the rocks, be aware all have different mineral compositions, you may use one with small amounts of iron or some such reactant and find you have discolored your paint a bit. Not too likely, but something to be aware of.
@@legendarydungeonmasters9614 HMM I dont know....I personally cant see spending that much on something that i will eventually toss. (cause i am not about to take time to wash off paint and resuse them ) . I can buy a whole bag of the rocks shown at Dollar Tree for a buck (probably 200-300 in a bag easy ) and take 5 mintues to wash them off with a strainer and some dish soap. and just set them out to dry while i do something else. Now mind you i use acrylics for crafting and am happy to have found a way to mix them better without killing my arm. (and may add some to some nail polish bottles i have too) . I guess if you have extra to spend on that , you are good but i am a crafter on a budget ...saving for that new house.. LOL
@@madpinoy5683 actually I agree with tubed super glue. Although I just buy the dollar store brand super glue, i buy the ones where there 3+ tiny tubes vs the size he uses.
same here aswell. also if you´re careful and know what you do, you need neither a funnel or a towel. I´ve bought about 50 droper bottles for if i remember correctly about 10€. Now all my paints are already perfectly thinned and ready to go. Also if you take care of the bottles you can just refill them with the same colour so its a 1-Time buy. Never was happier.
I have no idea where you’re getting your pricing for literally everything on your “do not buy” list, just about of of them are wrong. First, why a lab vortex shaker when you can get a nail polish shaker for about $15 or less. And come on... $7 for pipettes? I can get a 10 pack for a little over a buck at the local Daiso in the US (as well as other places). Lastly, don’t use rocks as paint agitators unless you know the mineral composition of those rocks. You are going to run into the same issue as non-stainless ball bearings if the iron content is too high, for example. Many pigments can have interesting and highly undesirable reactions as well.
Ive seen people buy the expensive lab mixer on facebook all the time. and 7$ for 50 pipets vs your number, over 5$ for 50 is a tiny difference. and as long as the rock used as a mixer is iron ore it shouldn't cause a problem.
The thing shown in this video is a nail polish shaker. Also, the extra 20 bucks a cheap version of that costs over the 20 buck version you are promoting here is well worth it.
Good stuff. I disagree about the dropper bottlers though. They're easy to transfer with out any funnels so long as you have a steady hand. The amazon bottles I got are holding up nice so long as you don't over tighten them. Of course the best thing would be for games workshop to realize being different isnt always good lol The pots are so frustrating and wasteful. Great videos! Thanks for doing them.
I disagree completely on the vortex shaker, I have saved a huge amount of older paint pots and bottles using one. It works far better than hand shaking!
Using army painter and a metal ball was a pain to mix, that vortex brought my interest back into painting. Definitly better than using a sawsall and a pill bottle zip tied to the blade
Though I haven't really been a fan of the few Army Painter paints I purchased, the washes they have are legit. Strong Tone and Dark Tone both are some of the best brown and black washes out there honestly
Their citadel counterparts are much better for a variety of reasons (the biggest is their surface tension is different, making them easier to control and cause less chance for pooling unless you really slop it on) but reaper, vallejo and others make better paint in general. To be frank about it, Army Painter offers absolutely nothing that another company doesn't do better.
I had trouble initially because they do not come pre-mixed like other brands (that's how they make them so cheaply) - A stone or ball-berring and a cheap nail polish shaker made my Army Painter paints work perfectly. LukesAPS does a good video on how to fix the mixing problem: ua-cam.com/video/xWzLRD1Cetc/v-deo.html Their washes are awesome, I also really appreciate that they have a good range of classic 40k colors that GW stopped making.
There seems to be a lot of bad reviews from people who got old or frozen paint. The ones I bought at my local hobby store are all ok as far as paint goes.
Thanks for the file advice, that was solid. Seems like $10 for 100 stainless steel ballbearings is too large a price to pay for not having to waste time washing rocks. What's your issue with Army Painter? I've primarily used them, so I'm wondering if their's something I'm missing.
i mean with the time spent picking up and cleaning all those rocks I could make the 5.99 for 200 ball bearings from like ak or something. idk im not putting rocks in my paint lol.
100 4mm ball bearings for $0.24: www.aliexpress.com/item/4000617536950.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.1ef1582aSfQCMe&algo_pvid=9ce7795f-553b-477b-b294-12284f7f0ad9&algo_expid=9ce7795f-553b-477b-b294-12284f7f0ad9-2&btsid=0bb0622916058054770832025e40a3&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_ Hard to argue in favour of rocks. ;)
And you were right, this would bring discussion :P I agree on most of it, but there's the obvious two i gotta mention: * A cheap bottle shaking machine for nail polish *will* save you quite a bit of effort for not much money. I don't think i'd ever buy one of those lab-grade shaking gizmos because for that price i can get far more hobby supplies or minis (they're more expensive that most Games Workshop army boxes and that's saying a lot!). But a cheap shaking machine *does* help. Not to mention the one time i did all that shaking for a paint that was *really* precipitated, and had to wait like 20 minutes to start painting because my right hand was *not* stable for a while because of the effort. Jeremy from Black Magic Craft did a review of one of those nail polish shakers and they worked well, so i got one and yes, it does work very nicely, if noisy. * Dropper bottles. You say it's not worth it and better get other paints and you're (mostly) right (by now i have fewer and fewer Citadel paints). Then GW came out with Contrast paints and their nice washes and other products worth getting. All in those intentionally misdesigned pots. I want to be able to get Nuln Oil without having the risk of giving my desk, clothes and floor a nice black wash. So, Vallejo sells mixing bottles, they come in 35ml capacity, with a graded scale at the side and all, and they can fit a whole pot of the bigger Citadel ones with room to spare. And here's what happens when you tip one (this one i filled with Reikland Fleshshade): i.imgur.com/rNKJWHZ.mp4 And one thing, you dismiss the idea of Citadel paints drying out on those pots, when it's been *thoroughly* documented by almost all of us that those pots are badly designed so that not only they can tip over easily (the tipped pot of wash on the desk is literally a meme now), but that they tend to not close well and therefore get the paint inside dry out. It's a bad mistake to dismiss this when it's not just real, but common. And veterans will very effusively compare them with the older Citadel pots that actually worked, even I who am not *that* old in the hobby have old Citadel pots with paint that still works (Mechrite Red is nice), while i've had 1 year old paints dry on the pot. And as an aside, i feel dumb for not thinking of rocks as mixing thingies. Gotta check what i can find nearby.
Paint doesn't dry out overnight, you do have to check in on your paint from time to time, at LEAST a few times a year. I think the trouble comes from owning too much paint. If you have colors you never touch you shouldn't own them. I stay away from paint sets for this reason, I just buy singular paints when I have a need for them. I also check in often and add thinner or water where necessary.
I have a gnarloc green from early 2000's that is still good. The new paint pots have made me slowly switch to Vallejo plant. Get some matte medium and you can mix up your own contrast paint
My lab grade shaking gizmo cost me 40 bucks. And the one in the pic regularly sells for 50 or less. Last year when this vid was released this model mixer was under 30 for many months. eBay for a Vortex Genie 2 mixer
1: Small wooden cubes might be vaguely adequate for small plastic models. They're useless for anything else. They're too small to prevent hand fatigue while painting, they won't stay on their sides with metal models or larger models, and they're harder to find and more expensive than old pill bottles or corks. I use scrap pieces of 1" x 2" lumber about 6" long. They don't stand up vertically especially well, but in every other respect they work extremely well. And I got them for free. 2: Very much agree on both using sanding sticks and buying them from the beauty department. I also use makeup brushes for drybrushing (from the same sources). Cheap and excellent for the purpose. 3: Sets of small drill bits are pretty easy to find (#61 - #80 sets work very well and aren't unreasonably priced). You can get them from hobby stores or by mail order easily. If you're drilling through metal, I would recommend starting with a pilot hole, which seems absurd when you're talking about a final hole that is less than 1mm in diameter, but it really helps. (I replaced the pikes on a couple of hundred 15mm scale pikemen; I have lots of experience here.) 4: Sure, bottle caps would work but you really want to clean them first. I generally do my random mixing on blister-pack backer cards, which work great for all but the most fluid stuff. For that I'll use an old well palette, since I don't use them for anything else these days. 5: Wash bottle is an excellent choice, but I've never (in more than 40 years of painting) found the need to use distilled water for painting. It won't hurt anything, though. 6: Tamiya extra thin cement works well. So does either Acetone or Methyl-Ethyl Ketone, which can be found in your local hardware store in large cans for much less money. (The Tamiya product is just a 50/50 mix of butyl acetate and acetone, btw.) Sprue goo (what you're calling "extra-thick cement") is an excellent thing to keep around. 7: I've used rocks as agitators. I've used hematite beads (which are significantly more dense) as agitators. I strongly prefer 3/0 lead shot or lead sinkers. The extra density makes them work much better. If you have old lead miniatures that you're not looking to use or sell, bits of old minis can work well, too. BTW, never use steel shot, even stainless steel shot, as either one can corrode in your paint. 8: Nothing wrong with that cabinet, but I base my minis with magnets so I can use steel trays to carry them and store them. The magnets dramatically reduce damage in transit. And if you attach the magnets before painting, you can even put a steel billet on top of your painting stick and easily switch models when painting. 9: Strongly agree about super glue. Though I very seldom use it except for assembling PVC models (Reaper Bones, Wizkids, whatever.) Super glue for most bonding jobs is extremely brittle and has little torsional or sheer strength, though it's very good in tension. Epoxy works much better for metal figures, btw. And the "avoids": 1: Agree unless you're doing a massive assembly job all at once. Super glue has a very limited shelf life, especially once it's been opened. 2: I took a long time to buy a vortex mixer. Buying one is one of the best purchases I've ever made. It makes prepping paint for use unbelievably better. Especially if you're using something like Scale75 paints, the mixer is an arm saver. 3: I really hate pot paints. I don't really use GW paint, for a variety of reasons, but I've moved most of my paints into dropper bottles because they just work better. I bought my bottles in bulk from US Plastics, where I think I paid around $0.36/bottle (including tip and cap, 15cc Boston Round) for a bottle that is better quality than those used by Reaper or Vallejo. And decanting a pot into a bottle is trivial if you pour down a thin rod. The surface tension of the paint will keep the stream adhered to the rod and the pouring is easy. When you get to the end, add some thinner, shake well, and pour the last of the paint out.
I’m a noob painter and spruce goo is new to me. My understanding is you basically just shake up some plastic sprues in the cement until it dissolves. Would the resulting compound work to bind resin? Cyanoacrylate sometimes doesn’t seem to bind well enough for some of the 28mm pieces I end up needing to repair, like thin legs that often break due to the brittleness of the resin.
@@gegonut My experience with sprue goo is that it takes a few hours for the sprue to dissolve, though I'm sure that depends on the solvent you use. (I was using Acetone, FWIW.) But yeah, just dump some sprue in the solvent and after a while you have sticky gray (or whatever other color) goo. I'd recommend using a glass container, because it's embarrassing if you dissolve your bottle. 8-) (There are plastics that will work, but it's not a mistake I'm willing to take a chance on where I don't have to.) I would definitely not recommend using it for anything but the same polymer. GW plastic parts (and most plastic model kit parts) are polystyrene, which works well with sprue goo. The solvent dissolves a bit of the surfaces you put the goo on and then evaporates from both the surfaces and the goo, leaving behind plastic that is welded together. But resin (or PVC, like Reaper Bones or Wizkids plastic figures) isn't going to weld in the same way, I think. (If you try it and it works, I'd love to hear about it, btw.) I use superglue for PVC, where it works _great_, but otherwise I seldom use it. It's very strong in tension but in torsion or sheer it's brittle and weak. I use Acetone or MEK for polystyrene (sometimes in the form of sprue goo). I use PVA or wood glue for wood, paper, and ground coverings. And I use epoxy glue with pins where necessary for resin and metals, though I've heard good things about Gorilla glue (which is a polyurethane adhesive with some long-term flexibility) as well.
Excellent advise. My cousin is REALLY into the hobby and swears by magnetized bases. has magnetized everything he has as far as I know. His favorite thing besides ease of transport is that on his metal storage shelves he hangs his infantry on the bottom and his vehicles/terrain on top. Though the vehicles are magnetized as well Also you can buy itty bitty single use tubes of super glue from dollar stores and amazon. Excellent value to keep around for....that guy needs a feather or ...ooops.
I find Army painter quite good I use three brands Vallejo, Army painter and Reaper I use these 3 as I find that some paints of different makes give me different effects ( with less work)
Army Painter paints are like silk. I love them. Wife got me a huge box for Christmas and I love it. I have many brands of paint too, so I know what is up.
The fact that I can spray on a color primer and it's 100% color matched to the equivalent paint saves me an incredible amount of time and instantly makes Army Painter better for me then the other brands
the only "problem" with Army Painter paints is you MUST. SHAKE. THEM. WELL. which can be made much easier if you add an agitator to them (rocks/stainless steel balls/hematite beads/whatever).
@@druidgamer9735 I found a cheap nail polish shaker helps as well (saves your arms lol) Lots of the ones online had buyer photos using it for army painter bottles 😂
I moved all of my GW paints (about 40 pots) into dropper bottles and it's the best thing I've ever done for my hobby experience. I didn't use pipettes or funnels, I just added a bit of thinner, shook up the pot, then poured the paint straight into the bottle. A steady hand and some patience is all it takes.
Same, transferred the first ca 10 GW pots free hand, with no spillage at all. But got a bunch of tiny funnels after that for a couple of bucks. But since I wash them after use they are reusable. Sure you lose about 1-2ml of paint in the transfer, but it's so worth it.
I did that years ago. You can also stick a toothpick in the bottle and pour along it to avoid spills. This has saved me tons of time and money over the past 10 years. (No spills or dried up paints)
My mini vortex is one of my favorite tools in my paint arsenal.. it saves so much time and money reviving and keeping my paint fresh. I couldn't disagree with you more
Love the vortex too, saves so much time and handpain when mixing separated paints perfectly in seconds. I also disagree with droppers. They are meant to prevent gw paint from drying out. 20 years ago the old gw pots (now sold with p3 colors) where ok but the new ones are bad and paints dry out very regulary.
Their white primer spray is literally why i bought an airbrush, after it ruined some very expensive and sentimental gifts. Their products absolutely do not work "every single time".
On the paint mixer, I can say from personal experience that if you are older and have arthritis you will appreciate a paint mixer. Dang young whippersnappers....
My hot tips bases: (emptty) pill bottles with bluetack, glue: revell contacta plastic glue, also citadel paints bottles are ok, if you need just a tiny bit for fixing things, or shading
Dont buy GW. I switched to Vallejo a year ago: 1. Very impressed with the colour range and the paint quality. 2. I'm not wasting my time pouring paint from one container to the next.
I'd even say: experiment with other brands! Additionally try out oil paints or at least oil washes. Real game changer in terms of panel lining! Cheers!
It might be worth trying Army Painter for horde projects - the fact that I can spray on a color primer and it's 100% color matched to the equivalent paint saves me an incredible amount of time with base painting the basic color schemes
GW has a really good line of paints and solid colors. Their pots are shit, but decanting paints into dropper bottles is not hard. I did over 130 paints this way and it took me a few hours on a sunday afternoon. Also, GW paints are super easy to find in ANY hobby shop. Most places here don't sell the other brands.
@@alcovitch - I’ve almost never seen Citadel paints on sale in a model shop round where I live. But perhaps that’s because I don’t do Warhammer - much prefer scale models and historical wargaming.
I have one of those mixing machines, and it is hands down the best thing I have ever bought for the hobby. Not sure why you hate them, but you have obviously not used one. Why spend 30 seconds to a minute shaking a paint, adding wear and tear on your wrist, when you can just press the pot on the mixer for literally a 5 count for the same result? As someone who has had Carpal Tunnel surgery, I would implore you to not tell people these are a waste of money as the act of shaking your paints is just as much a cause of carpal tunnel syndrome as is the painting itself. Less time shaking a paint bottle means a better chance of you not having to have surgery at some point in your life. And yes, I use river rock agitators in my paints like you do as well.
Another good method that can save money is taking the heads off of a massage gun (if you own one) and sticking the caps of your paints in. Works like a dream.
@@ninjapancake9 I use my massage gun for that as well. And it's cheaper than mixing machine too if you're looking to buy some mixer 😂 Well, at least here in Finland it is, even considering Amazon or Ebay. Add a rock or 2 in pots and it'll mix the paint like there's some vortex inside.
I love building models but have arthritic hands and shaking paint hurts so one of my favourite accessory’s is my paint shaker, brilliant and would recommend every day! Having said that I agree with everything else you said, keep it up, great vids.
Your "Don't Buy's" are "Definite Buy's" for me. LOL! I have several "bottles" of glue; A Gorilla super glue, a Citadel Plastic Glue, and a Testor (?) one I don't use very much. I also have Tamiya Extra Thin and Regular. The "bottled glues" you have so much problem with? Not me. My Gorilla one I've had for about 6 months now...still working just fine, not clogged up, still lots left. I use if for adding small rocks/skulls to bases, or on large models for assembly. Strange you have so much trouble....either I'm just lucky, or maybe it's user error on your part? .. Nail Polish Mixer for mixing paints. For me, a must have! I have pretty bad Fibromyalgia, which basically means I'm always in pain...and the more I have to shake a bottle of paint, the more pain my hands/arms get, leading to virtually nothing getting done on a mini (or, just as bad, 'shaky' work because of muscle pain/fatigue). All it takes is about four or five "hand shaking" of bottles and my painting session is over. So...yeah...for me, medical reasons. Must have. :) .. Paint Droppers. Again...for me, must have. Opening my Citadels can get painful. So I bought a hundred bottles or so (I have/had all the GW paints from several years ago). I transferred them manually; I DID try to use a little 'mini funnel', bought a hundred of those too, but the paint was just too thick and took too long to funnel down. In the end, just pouring it by hand into the top was the least messy, easiest, and fastest. .. Lastly...I find it interesting that you balk at spending $15 to get a bunch of pipettes, paper towels and dropper bottles...but likely have zero problem spending twice that on some GW plastic mini. Just an observation... ;) ... My "DO NOT BUY!" list would be easy: "Anything made by Games Workshop...if you can find an alternative". Absolutely NOTHING will save you money like moving AWAY from all things GW. Nothing.
So I bought two bottles of Tamiya Extra Thin and now want to make my extra thick. So how much do I put in? What am I looking for here? Maybe a video talking about this one topic?
It’s really not enough to say in an entire vid and you’ll find it’s not rocket science, just practice and preference. You just cut left over sprue into small pieces. Pea sized or smaller ( I use a blade and shave it). The smaller, the faster it desolves and shortens your wait time. Just add some, wait, check if the consistency is what you desire, if not add some more. It works in the regular Tamiya cement as well. It starts off thicker. It’s commonly and lovingly called sprue glue. It’s great as gap filler as well because it basically dries back into plastic.
@@Kal_El_Krypton Thank you for asking this question and thank you for your answer Bryan, I was also curious as I just got two normal Tamiya cements and didn't want to ruin one.
So you aren't good at capping super glue,and you aren't good at looking up the prices of things... You can somehow always cap GW paints, but super glue is beyond you...odd go man.
I’m with Jay on this one. I’m very careful with cleaning the tip of my super glue container, and never leave the cap off for more than 30 seconds. Don’t think I’ve ever got near finishing a bottle of superglue. Much better to buy the small containers, which at my local pound shop/dollar store you can have for about three or four small bottles per dollar.
great video! I've been painting miniatures and models since I was 12 years old and am now 60. I have to whole heartedly agree with many of the things you mention with the exception of the paint shaker. I have carpal tunnel and severe arthritis and just can't do the shake anymore. I built, well put together a DIY shaker from an old jig saw and clamp and it worked very good, as long as you clamped the paint in good enough. After many years of using that I finally spent the money and bough one of the vortex mixers. Yes for $100 I could have bought alot of paint or minis but it was necessary and I dont regret it at all!
Yeah, easily his worst point! It just saves so much hobby time and makes it so much easier. Why spend all my time shaking paints when I could be painting?
I was wondering if anybody else had the same issue. I tore the ligaments in both wrists and now have degenerative arthritis in both hands and wrists. Shaking the bottles is way too painful. I picked up a Vortex mixer off of Amazon for about 30 bucks and have pain free mixing now.
What you want is the loctite squeezy bottles with the non needle end. The needle tip is great if you want to only use the thing once, but it clogs. the normal tip loctite squeezy fine tip super glue works really really well. I had one for a year and a quater and used it numerous times and it never clogged because of the waxy coating on the plastic tip... i even stored it upside down once and some came out in the cap all you do is get something sharp and scrape it off and your ready to go. The sqeezy sides mean i pick that one every time, using the tubes ive had numerous issues like glueing my fingers to objects and i even had an entire tube rupture in my box and ruin my archimedes drill.
See, you say a vortex mixer is a waste, but don't take into account that 10 seconds on one is about the equivalent of 10 minutes worth of shaking. I've had bottles of paint from many brands that were separated and I couldn't get them to mix well. A simple ball bearing that was salt water tested for a couple days and then rinsed clean, the vortex mixer and about a minute and it's good as new. None of the more expensive things are bad, but are definitely quality of life improvements.
I will say that after many years of shaking paint bottles by hand, I got a $25 nail polish shaker off of amazon and the difference is night and day. Throw in an agitator and just let the machine do it's work. It's easier *and* much faster. *CAN* you get your paint fully mixed by hand? Yes. Yes you can. Is it worth the repetitive stress injuries you'll eventually get from doing it that way? No.
@@ColonelSandersLite been my experience for people who say no to a Vortex mixer and say to just shake them have never given a Vortex mixer and honest try.
I love my mixer as well, and I also agree with his point that they are quite pricey. If you have the money to spare, they are a great investment though.
HAHA, Like everything else the Test tube shakers... Sorry 'Vortex paint mixers' are not new, I was using the one in my schools science lab to mix model paints 20+ years ago, also used the magnetic stirrer 🤣🤣 When searching for these as any type of paint mixing device, that's already the hobby rebrand! Test tube mixers marketed at small lab use start at a much more attractive price until you hit the Big Brands! Same as any other cheaper brand there are junk and gems, 35-40$ can get a mixer more than good enough for hobby use imo, variable speed ones are helpful for thicker paints too!
I never realized that super glue was such a problem. Any build up I have around the tip of my Gorilla Super Glue I just take care of with my scalpel. GW overpriced paint pots are a scourge upon this earth and to the hobby as a whole. Get Vallejo paints! Why? Well Vallejo is a paint company so their inventory stays the same GW changes their colors whenever they find a cheaper paint supplier. I have 2 different paint mixers that I love dearly and that I would never part with.
PraetorGix I almost dropped my tax return on buying the entire Coat d’Arms range when I decided to get back into the hobby a few months ago because of the nostalgia of the old old GW paints (I was missing 2 inks from the complete set when they did the change over after going returning to flip lids). In the end I decided to buy a Army Painter set, and variety of Vallejo paints for a fair bit less as a new starting point.
I've used my $5 gel Gorilla super glue for dozens of projects now and both the tip and cap are still in great condition. Meanwhile the tips on those $1 tubes go bad almost instantly.
It's more like advice to "just be more resourceful" than actual tips. I agree that nowadays kids relies too heavily on expensive "modeler" tools. But small paint mixer cups are dirt cheap when compared to scavenging bottle caps around the house and washing bunch of them. Just be more resourceful, without going too hardcore and cheap out on everything. You can make sanding sticks by taping sanding papers to a godam stick. You can use firm q-tips from beauty section instead of buying the super expensive modeler q-tips. Etc.
The vortex mixers are ok I’ve got one to do my paint only because I’m disabled like a lot of model makers so we have to use things like that or make them ourselves
@@raspernor11 maybe an orbital shaker plate or microplate shaker might work for you. You can pick them up for similar prices to a vortex mixer if you look around but they're switch activated rather than pressure
I'm sorry, but all these arguments against putting paints from pots into dropper bottles seem silly. Putting the paint into dropper bottles isn't just about dried out paints, it's convenient too. It's so much easier to use them that way. Citadel paints in pots tend to go bad way quicker. That's a fact! Think about all the different places on earth where people paint. If you happen to live in a very warm and dry climate, your pots will surely die! And if I happen to like a specific paint in a pot very much and love to paint with it, why is it a better idea to stop using the paint completely instead of transferring it into a dropper bottle? That makes no sense at all and it surely doensn't make you a better painter! It really isn't that expensive to transfer paints. I mean in comparison to all the other products we buy. And if you are worried about all that time it takes to transfer the paints, think about the all time you could save if you had a vortex mixer to shake your paints! THAT is a time saver! You don't have to buy a brand new one. I bought a used one from a lab on Ebay for only 25€ and it works like a charm. I don't need stones in my paints that could potentially break and/or contaminate the paint. I wonder if you have even tried a vortex mixer before you stated that these things are useless. Last but not least: I started with Army Painter paints. And I had a blast painting with them! They are very beginner friendly imho. You just have to use them the right way, which Army Painter explains often enough (I am talking about getting rid of the excess medium)
You're better off buying the other paints that already come in droppers and drop gw paints all together. I still like the empty paint droppers for custom mixed colors. but that's a small niche.
If you want to see any meaningful change in what paints people buy people need to stop using GW names/paints in tutorials. Personally I just get annoyed trying to figure out what the alternative is to what is being used. I'd rather just get the pot and move it and save myself the time researching color equivalents and then it still being a different shade.
I use mostly gamesWorkshop/citadel paints and a lot of them (20-30 pots)dry (Was realy anoying) the few armypaints i use are good, and valejo is awesome specialy the airbrush range. For airbrush nothing beats dropperbottles, cant understand why Gw produced potts for the airbrushrange
I only disagree on the dropper bottles and the Citadel paints, although it's true that it is cumbersome, i dont use funnels nor pippets, for 15€ you have 50 FIFTY bottles, and i use some flow improver and just transfer by tilting the pot, it's thick enough so it doesn't spill, and the flow improver helps getting almost all the paint from the pot. I guess I can say that I'm one of those people that doesn't care to much about cost. For me, citadel paints are awesome, there are some nice tones, vibrant colors and for some minis they go great, and I hate that half my paint dries in the cap, can't close the bottle well enough and it's a pain to put on the palette. They can also be refilled once you buy more, look nicer on my rack, and the added flow improver means I don't need to thin them so much.
I agree, another option to get a Leur Lock syringe with some flat tips you can yeet out the whole pot so quickly. I just clean the syringe and use a new tip (a 100 pack is like $7)
Honestly, the storage benefit alone helped sway me to droppers. It also really helps with me accidentally knocking them over or putting way too much on my pallet.
how did you come up with $15 to move paints into drop containers? It's best to have them already pre-mixed and ready to go. Glass pipets are $12 for about 20 of them and cleaning them is super easy, doesn't matter if paint is fully dried up. The time it takes to mix paint with thinner every time you go to paint something is a pain in the ass. I do scale model cars and sometimes when I have to change 3 times in the same day, it just makes me want to throw everything out. And come on, who uses a full roll of paper towels lol
Would disagree will the dropper assment. I moved over around 120 GW paints to droppers. Didnt use anything less then flow improver, steal bearing and a steady hand. Made 0 mess and took maybe 2hrs or 3 hrs. And the amount of paint I save from having to peal off the pot caps or wipe down the lids from pots. Is well worth the 3hrs and say $15 I spent.
I'm actually about to transfer my pots over to dropper bottles soon. The Citadel ones are designed flawed on purpose. I have pots I've not even opened yet, and they've started to "reef". Your paint will eventually all dry up in these pots as they're designed to not be air tight so your paint won't last as long, and you'll have to replace it. GW might make some gorgeous minis, and have some nice colours that are not available by other brands (you could mix them, but some of these mixes are quite complicated for newbies) they have some unscrupulous business practices. I would advise everyone to transfer their paints over to dropper bottles. Just don't cheap put on the dropper bottles too much, or you'll be wasting your time. Also get some vallejo air brush thinner and put a drop in each pot before transferring. I honestly tried to avoid this practice for years, but it's time. When I have unopened paints that are no more than a year old and have a started to reef, this tells me 100% that the pots are completely flawed. Now pots like P3 might be fine. They're the older style pots that GW had before they fell to the dark side. And also stuff like washes and contrast paint likely will not dry up as fast. For layer and base paints though I would 100% transfer them. The only way I'd not do this is if I used my paints at an obscene rate and it didn't become an issue.
Disagree emphatically when it comes to vortex mixers. Long term wrist health, saving a hell of a lot of time and keeping paints mixed WAY better than your hands will ever mix them was worth the $60aud my 3e's vortex mixer cost. Also shaking and mixing via a vortex are inherently different processes.
One major problem is that open draws are not dust and cat-fur proof. Just six months to a year and you can guarantee your less-used minis will be covered in a layer of dust. And much worse if you have a long-haired cat!
This was really excellent. I don't agree with everything but there's a lot here that is so useful. BTW I always UNSCREW the nozzle on my Zap-A-Gap and transfer it to the model with a toothpick. Problem. Solved. But your way is great too! ;)
As someone who just found this channel AND mostly does bigger models, this vid is an immediate sub. Big kudos. But the REAL mixing machine is to have a young cousin or nephew and say "here shake this".
Dropper bottles from china cost next to nothing. Never used GW paints, but I pour all my Tamiya paints into dropper bottles, pre-thinned. You do not need a funnel, you need a toothpick that you can re-use multiple times if you let it dry up after using. Under a minute to pour and thin a bottle full of paint. Also you can pre-mix colours to have better consistency.
23 years painting - don't need pippete, funnel etc to pour the paints, did it in a couple hours. GW paint pots suck ass. Moving over to vallejo but don't want my paints from GW drying out just from basic use. GW products are a waste.
I prefer the dropper bottles but... I really really love citadel paints. I wish I preferred Vallejo. I don't want to transfer to droppers because I'm afraid of wasting a ton of paint
What do you have against army painter? Never really had an issue with them. Not my go to but nothing I'd steer someone away from. Been a while since I picked up a brush though. When I was painting regular I liked the Privateer Press line and Coat d'arms.
I've been in the hobby for over 40 years now, and didn't know a lot of these tips. I do learn something new every day! Great video and thanks for the tips.
How much money do you lose when your GW pots go bad? It’s great you don’t have this problem, but I live in the desert, and I do. As for not using GW paints, I would agree with that, but they are always exception.
hi Jay i'm from Rio de Janeiro and i watch your channel for about 5 years, congratulations on the return of the content it was through him that i started in the universe of minis paintings and in dioramas and terrains.
I never understood why people would buy already expensive citadel paints just to spend more money and time to put them in dropper bottles. Just buy vallejo or army painter (yes i disagree with you there, army painter is good). Problem solved
When I started many years ago GW Citadel paints came in those little flip top bottles like the P3 paints and those were great. I had GW paints for probably 10+ years with no problems as long as you kept the rim clean. But then they switched to the stubby paint pots with the screw on lids and those were HORRIBLE. I couldn't keep paint for more than a year and even less with some colors before they were dried like a rock! I have a few of the stubbies they have now with the flip tops, but haven't painted in a few years so I don't know how well they hold up. I wish they had never switched away from those original bottles!
As someone just getting into warhammer but has limited experience in model cars rust oluem model master liquid cement is a god send its strong as all hell has a very small precise metal applicator tip and almost never goes bad i bought mine for model cars 4 years ago wiped it off the other day and it bonded parts for my first ever warhammer mini perfectly
I love to have my GW paints in dropper-bottles. If you buy a funnel out of glas (4€ ~ 4$ on amazon) you can keep on using it since you can clean it with water. Also i invest some more time into prep and save some time during painting, since i have the paint prethinned to my prefered basecoat straight out of the bottle and i dont have to thin it on my pallet. Also its way easier to put on my pallet in the first place. Additionally if you knock over a dropper bottle it leaves almost no mess, if you kock over an open GW-pot you have paint everywhere. Don't buy ballbearings, buy cleaning balls. You get 1000 for about 7€. It is a lifetime supplie
First time i hear about those "cleaning balls", searched and it looks like the search phrase you want to use is "decanter cleaning balls", they're stainless steel and at about the right size, nice find!
Plastic bottles on aliexpress are two bucks for 10 psc. Droppers are 1 buck per 10. Amazon is just always a ripoff same shitty product for three times the price.
The citadel files are diamond coated steel. One coarse and one fine. Ive had really good luck with these files with plastic. They seem to be a much finer grain than nail files even the extra fine grit ones. Worth the cost for what they are.
I don't get it too, honestly. I don't really use files now almost at all, cause I usually adept enough to scrape/carve what I need with design knife and for really big areas I use sandpaper covered surfaces, but I used files ALOT back in the days. I even nailed down a solid piece of sprue to make it look like Jet from Fallout in something like 1:32 scale.
Usually the tooth profile on metalworking files is too aggressive for (plastic) miniatures, resulting in badly scratched and gouged platic. You may have fine toothed files.
@@xjunkxyrdxdog89 well obviously you use fine tooth on that. Like you don't use 60 sandpaper for polishing a wooden doorknob - you don't use few millimetre toothed files to work with plastic.
sorry got to disagree i use steel files religiously when building to get rid of bits like mould lines and it depends on your file. i find that a small cylindrical file with a spiral works and doesn't leave scratches but a file with a diamond pattern is more likely to leave scratches.
Lol ‘maybe I am just careless but the superglue in a bottle dries when I forget to put the cap on’ I find that hilarious thank you for unintentionally making me laugh
I always end up having those little tubes explode on me when I put the caps on, it's always an epic fail, lol. Ax Anax Tabletop Gaming has a great video on transferring paint into dropper bottles, it's definitely worth the minimal work if you prefer painting from dropper bottles and already have many GW paints in the pot or are addicted to buying those sweet miniature+paint sets like me.
But you lose like 25% of your citadel paint if you leave it in its container, it's just going to dry and cake on the sides, so it is better to move them into dropper bottles.
I keep my old GW pots as mixing pots, moving over to Vallejo was the best decision I made in my hobby career. I did buy some dropper bottles but only because I was making my own contrast paints, which in the long run can save quite a substantial amount of model buying pennies
Great video. I like the little tube of wood(TM) idea. I tend to use 30-year-old bottles of dried up Testors paints, but I know you young whippersnappers don't all have access to those.
My dropper bottles cost £0.17 each, so 30 bottles for $7, well worth it. The GW paints I transferred over were from the very early 90's and I only had half a dozen out of 40+ that were no good after being stored in the attic all those years, so that says something in GW favour. Vallejo and Pro Acryl all the way, although GW do make some amazing washes.
Really paint has no reason to go bad, only dry out. If the dried pigment changes color over the years in a paint pot then that’s what’ll do on your model, which is a big no no. It does show they were using good pigments even back then, which is nice. Though it doesn’t say much to their quality overall and more to how stable pigments are in general, which can never be understated
80 dollars for a vortex mixer isn't expensive. It's skipping one new box of units, and never add rocks to your paint. You're just adding grit to your paint that will ruin your paintbrushes. Also, I've moved ever Base, Layer, Contrast and Shade paint over to dropper bottles. It took me maybe 2 days total, but has saved me countless hours struggling with paint pots.
Army Painter paints need more mixing than usual so I guess it catches most people out who only give them a shake, you need to get into the bottle and stir to get the best results.
@@VeggieManUK mixing with a stick works but so does 2/3 mixing balls. They worked good before I shook them properly but now they work amazing with proper mixing
Great video my friends! I use the small wooden cubes for painting and plinths too. I’m with you on most except of course the dropper bottles haha. It was worth it to to transfer it over but I mainly did it for storage purposes. I use essential oil cases to store my paints and I got a crazy deal on dropper bottles on eBay ($20 for 300) and they came with 30 funnels too. I did all of the transferring in a couple of hours while I had painters block and I still felt the need to do something hobby related. It’s all personal preference though. Again great work! I’m enjoying the new narrative format.
I just transferred all of my Citadel and Tamiya paints to bottles... It is time and money, but you might weigh that against space, organization, and paint control. It cost me about $40 for 50 dropper bottles and a transfer kit, and it took me two days to transfer 10 Citadel colors and 40 Tamiya colors. It was a hassle but I think I'm better off for it now. I'll need to buy more bottles as I start to expand my collection as I start to get into Warhammer and D&D minis...
small rocks. genius. edit: "don't buy #1" = seriously, this is so wrong. You'll waste much more paint using GW pots (and knocking them over - hello nuln oil -) than getting dropper bottles. Also, your prices are wrong AF. Get those bottles from wish or aliexpress for the cheapest, amazon is overpriced af. I paid mines 0.05€/each shipping included...
Re: mixing machines: I brought a nail polish mixer on Amazon for about $30 CAD. Since I paint with Army Painter, it seem to make big difference, particularly with new paints
Legit moved 100 paints from gw to droppers. At the cost of £10 including the funnels I reuse to move paint and the shaking balls. If you don’t want to spend the money fair but if you want to then go for it.
The thing about vortex mixers... I can manage maybe half an hour to an hour a week to paint at the moment. Without mine, I'd spend all that time manually mixing paint.
I buy 2 oz bottles of superglue, they last a long time. the same company sells replacement tips in bulk, I have a stash of them. whenever the tip on my bottle goes bad, I simply replace it. WAY cheaper than buying in small tubes.
I haven't tried the new "contrast" stuff but Citadel paints have always been hot garbage. Way too thick, poorly bound pigment, poorly designed jars (it's not just you that can't get the back closed), strange color range, and over priced. I have about 300 paints and maybe four are Citadel products. I find I like the flat matte finish I get from Reaper paints the best.
FYI or rather PSA. Got a Vortex Mixer for $25 off AliExpress, works like a champ, actually got to use Scale75 more often now since I don't have to shake the crap out of em for two minutes
Thanks for all these tips! The only mess I’ve ever made was with a clogged dropper bottle whose tip just blew out when I pressed the bottle and paint spilled all over my desk. GW pots aren’t half as bad as people say. Close them right after you’ve taken your paint and you’ll never spill any. Remove the dried paint around the lid often and make sure the cap clips all the way around and the paint will not dry. The only problem I have with them is that you need a brush for transferring them to a palette. Droppers are nice. But I agree that transferring all my GW pots to droppers is a waste of my precious hobby time. Just my two cents. Cheers everyone. Happy hobbying!
The transferring paints from GW pots to dropper bottles is the stupidest fad in the hobby right now. The arguments are completely devoid of logic too. "Allows for more accurate measuring/mixtures!" No it doesn't. One small brush full and one drop are about the same. Furthermore, you work on a wet palette (or you don't belong in the hobby), so measurements aren't relevant. "The GW caps get gunked up with paint!" And the dropper bottles get clogged tips. Also, the pigment and liquid tend to separate in a dropper bottle, and it's much more difficult to reconstitute than in a pot. "But you can put a ball bearing/pebble in the dropper to mix it!" You can put one in a pot too. "But...but the dropper means less wasted paint!" No it doesn't. Again, one small brush = a drop. And if you're working on a palette, you aren't going to waste paint anyway because it will last the life of the project. The transfer to dropper bottles is cost and time inefficient. People are doing it now because...other people are doing it now. They adopt an elitist mentality about it and it isn't aiding their hobby at all.
YES! You are a scholar!! I have a cheeky theory it’s also because people like to avoid doing the actual “work” of painting their models so they use the excuse that this will help them be a better painter instead of just doing it.
Counter Points: 1. They never spill unless you squeeze them way to much. If it gets clogged....push pin. Or pin vise if you're super worried about a tiny nugget of dry paint going in the bottle. 2. They never dry up. All paint separates, no matter what container, however a dropper doesn't allow air/evaporation. 3. Poking the tip with a pin is a hell of a lot easier than cleaning up the crusties on a pot lid. 4. I've never flung paint from a dropper bottle like I have on the seemingly springloaded lid of a GW, P3, Coat d'Arms or other attached lids. 5. If pots are so great, why is the industry moving away from them. 6. You might transfer a drop in your brush, but you just wasted a bunch to you water pot as you cleaned it. Other tools are better for transferring from a pot. Droppers are even easier. 7. You don't need a bunch of stupid stands, blue tack or other devices to ensure your pot never tips over. 8. You don't need any special equipment to transfer to a dropper bottle. I transferred the few I've done with nothing but a little drink stirrer from Starbucks. 9. You don't need to reconstitute paint from a dropper because of Number 2. All of us who have painted with pots have had to do it at one point or another. Whether that was GW, P3, or even old Ral Partha. 10. Dropper bottles themselves are cheap. And if you aren't spending money on stuff to transfer them (although that syringe technique sounds awesome), this really isn't an issue. Even if the bottles aren't super durable, it's not like it costs much to replace one. Honestly, it's going to be the tip you'll ever need to replace anyway. Spend an extra buck for better bottles? It's way cheaper in the long run than cleaning up and re-purchasing that next bottle of Nuln Oil you spilled. 11. Finally, if this is a fad, why are there literal petitions to GW to package their product this way and ditch pots? If you don't want to do it, no worries! But don't act like there aren't legit reasons for it, not everyone is a fan boy, some just like that for practicality it's just better.
I guess you gotta be cheap when you're spending hundreds of dollars buying armies that you'll never paint
lol. TRUTH!
Whoa. Shots fired.
@@WestinsChannel Nah, that’s just the truth bro. Why buy supplies when you can pile up that plastic shame?
I’m going to paint them one day…..
Reported for personal attack
I recently converted all my GW paints into dropper bottles. I had over 120 that I had to do. I put a glass agitator in every single one. It took my three hobby nights and I was having a blast! I loved it. They look great on the shelf. They take up alot less room. I used flow improver to make the process faster and in so doing I thinned my paints perfectly. I waste ZERO paint now. With the pots I always get that ring of dried paint. I would scoop to much out with my brush. I never could measure the amount of one color to another accurately.... All those issues fixed with three nights of hobby time!?!? 100% done. I got those dropper bottles. They are perfect. I skipped the funnel. Skipped the pin squeeze thing. I got my paint to a good consistency with flow improver and just poured each one in! Dropped an agitator in. And tipped the top in paint to see the color on my shelf! Cost me $20
Lol, Ceramite White, the only GW paint that was completely dried up when I opened it brand new.
YEEPPPPP
The one pot of it I bought dried as well. I have pots of old Citadel paint that are 27 years old and still as good as the day I bought them.
I had a new runelord brass that was separated and like stiff jelly. Month later I'm still trying to shake and slowly add medium to it and see if I can salvage. Thanks gw
@@shaggyrumplenutz1610 Except skull white I'm betting :D I still use a fair few 1991 paints (transferred to droppers) myself.
@@madmoody100 lol yeah. You are correct. I haven't had that one in decades.
My best advice for super glue: keep it in the fridge! It never hardens at low temperature, and the tube/bottle stays cool so you can keep it a few minutes uncapped without fearing for the glue to dry inside. I still use the same tube since almost a year and it's still ready to use (almost empty now though... :p ). No more waste throwing away a dry half-full tube ^^
Interesting. Not that I often dry my glue, but it's fun to try.
Not sure I want superglue fumes around my food
@@GRRAB the neat part is that the glue doesnt dry clogging the cap, it stays cleanly sealed so fume cant get released.
I also suspect that the fume comes from the solidification reaction with the air, which doesnt happen at all at fridge temperature so the fume might not happen in the first place, but to be safe i always put it inside a box on the topper part of the fridge since the fume is lighter than air and would stay on top without touching the food until released when the door is opened.
yes, we use it for my job and that is exactly how you do it. To be even surer about the fumes you can put it in a plastic sealed small bag. It never caused any issues though even without
Instructions unclear, put glue on my cereal
Food for thought with the rocks, be aware all have different mineral compositions, you may use one with small amounts of iron or some such reactant and find you have discolored your paint a bit. Not too likely, but something to be aware of.
$10 bucks for 100 mixing balls isn't be big deal in my opinion. Not even worth the time to wash rocks at $0.10 a piece.
@@legendarydungeonmasters9614 HMM I dont know....I personally cant see spending that much on something that i will eventually toss. (cause i am not about to take time to wash off paint and resuse them ) . I can buy a whole bag of the rocks shown at Dollar Tree for a buck (probably 200-300 in a bag easy ) and take 5 mintues to wash them off with a strainer and some dish soap. and just set them out to dry while i do something else. Now mind you i use acrylics for crafting and am happy to have found a way to mix them better without killing my arm. (and may add some to some nail polish bottles i have too) . I guess if you have extra to spend on that , you are good but i am a crafter on a budget ...saving for that new house.. LOL
If you are going with rocks, you might consider varnishing them after you wash them to reduce the chance of reactions.
@@vickiechandler3112 why would you toss them out? Just use them for the same color you ran out off.
Glass beads are uniform, cheap, and don't come with little bits of dirt that will get in your paint. Also...glass never rusts.
I love using my metal files on plastic, just don't use pressure
Me too.
Yup. It's totally "PICNIC" problem. Don't blame the tool.
Yeah... much like his take on bottled vs tubed super glue.
Same here!
@@madpinoy5683 actually I agree with tubed super glue. Although I just buy the dollar store brand super glue, i buy the ones where there 3+ tiny tubes vs the size he uses.
My gw paint pots dry out before i get to use even half of it. HIGHLY recommend switching to dropper bottles.
Same bro 🙏🏻💯😉☺️👍🏻 it's really helpful!!!
same here aswell. also if you´re careful and know what you do, you need neither a funnel or a towel. I´ve bought about 50 droper bottles for if i remember correctly about 10€. Now all my paints are already perfectly thinned and ready to go. Also if you take care of the bottles you can just refill them with the same colour so its a 1-Time buy. Never was happier.
Maybe shake them
@@theratloverandclashroyaleg6946 they are bone dry lol.
Even if u clean the rim before closing it, those pots I swear are designed to slowly dry out.
Wow my citadel pots aren’t drie. Where do you keep them
I have no idea where you’re getting your pricing for literally everything on your “do not buy” list, just about of of them are wrong. First, why a lab vortex shaker when you can get a nail polish shaker for about $15 or less. And come on... $7 for pipettes? I can get a 10 pack for a little over a buck at the local Daiso in the US (as well as other places).
Lastly, don’t use rocks as paint agitators unless you know the mineral composition of those rocks. You are going to run into the same issue as non-stainless ball bearings if the iron content is too high, for example. Many pigments can have interesting and highly undesirable reactions as well.
Ive seen people buy the expensive lab mixer on facebook all the time. and 7$ for 50 pipets vs your number, over 5$ for 50 is a tiny difference. and as long as the rock used as a mixer is iron ore it shouldn't cause a problem.
I totally agree. yeah, some natural rocks can react to water or paint pigments.I like to use hematite/glass beads instead of random rocks.
Dudes a tool.
plus most rocks are absorbent and may trigger caking of the pigments.
Glass beads/marbles FTW. Won't rust or react to paint and heavy enough to be effective. Cheap to buy as well.
For shaking paint - use a nail polish shakers.
Yes, those cost around 20-25€ and Work great!
Yep, works great.
The thing shown in this video is a nail polish shaker. Also, the extra 20 bucks a cheap version of that costs over the 20 buck version you are promoting here is well worth it.
A vibrator and some duct tape would work too.
@@shiwan8 What was in this video is a test tube vortex mixer.
Good stuff. I disagree about the dropper bottlers though. They're easy to transfer with out any funnels so long as you have a steady hand. The amazon bottles I got are holding up nice so long as you don't over tighten them. Of course the best thing would be for games workshop to realize being different isnt always good lol The pots are so frustrating and wasteful. Great videos! Thanks for doing them.
I disagree completely on the vortex shaker, I have saved a huge amount of older paint pots and bottles using one. It works far better than hand shaking!
Using army painter and a metal ball was a pain to mix, that vortex brought my interest back into painting.
Definitly better than using a sawsall and a pill bottle zip tied to the blade
I have revitalized 20 year old paint with a mixer. Unless you are using all of your paints routinely, mixer can be had for $40-$50
me too and I swear I paid much less for mine and I have the lab genius one.
I bought one on AliExpress for 10 bucks.
Though I haven't really been a fan of the few Army Painter paints I purchased, the washes they have are legit. Strong Tone and Dark Tone both are some of the best brown and black washes out there honestly
I’ve never used their washes, I’ll have to give them a try
Their citadel counterparts are much better for a variety of reasons (the biggest is their surface tension is different, making them easier to control and cause less chance for pooling unless you really slop it on) but reaper, vallejo and others make better paint in general.
To be frank about it, Army Painter offers absolutely nothing that another company doesn't do better.
I had trouble initially because they do not come pre-mixed like other brands (that's how they make them so cheaply) - A stone or ball-berring and a cheap nail polish shaker made my Army Painter paints work perfectly. LukesAPS does a good video on how to fix the mixing problem:
ua-cam.com/video/xWzLRD1Cetc/v-deo.html
Their washes are awesome, I also really appreciate that they have a good range of classic 40k colors that GW stopped making.
Man I bought every tone they do after using the strong and dark tone. They're so good.
@@wolfehoffmann2697 I like their primers, the rest of their paints I can't speak much to except that the "100% match" claim is bullshit
Hey I love my army painter paint 😬
They are good paints. Dudes a dumbest for saying army painter is bad. They have the best washes in the game.
@@sayloth They have average paints and decent washes. That's as far as it goes.
There seems to be a lot of bad reviews from people who got old or frozen paint. The ones I bought at my local hobby store are all ok as far as paint goes.
I hate army painter washes, always turn out glossy, agrax all day
If your wash is too glossy... matte varnish it lol
Thanks for the file advice, that was solid.
Seems like $10 for 100 stainless steel ballbearings is too large a price to pay for not having to waste time washing rocks.
What's your issue with Army Painter? I've primarily used them, so I'm wondering if their's something I'm missing.
most of em dont really cover well, and they split very easily on a wet palette
Nothing, use what you want. A hot take is an opinion not a fact.
Glass boiling beads. Glass won't have a risk of rust. And the price? 13 bucks for 1000 4mm balls
i mean with the time spent picking up and cleaning all those rocks I could make the 5.99 for 200 ball bearings from like ak or something. idk im not putting rocks in my paint lol.
100 4mm ball bearings for $0.24: www.aliexpress.com/item/4000617536950.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.1ef1582aSfQCMe&algo_pvid=9ce7795f-553b-477b-b294-12284f7f0ad9&algo_expid=9ce7795f-553b-477b-b294-12284f7f0ad9-2&btsid=0bb0622916058054770832025e40a3&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_
Hard to argue in favour of rocks. ;)
Yeah man. The time it would take to find and clean 200 small pebbles. I could just do an hours overtime and buy 1000 😁
Agitating lumps of minerals in water suspended pigments sounds like you're asking for trouble.
@@Monkeyshaman Correction. You are agitating the water suspended pigments using the minerals as the agitator.
@@madpinoy5683 I'll just have to tell my pots of good covering yellow that if they turn a sooty rust I guess. 🤷♂️
Yes, but where do you -get- the "Little Cube of Wood(TM)"?
Dice.
@@zookysmodels6575 you could make your own out of some nice wood (better than pine) or you might find them at arts and craft stores.
I use scrap pieces of styrofoam to stick pins into to hold figures, parts as they dry.
If you're in Australia, I have seen that "Little Cube of Wood(TM)" on Gumtree
They were a limited release, you'll have to wait for the anniversary reprint.
And you were right, this would bring discussion :P
I agree on most of it, but there's the obvious two i gotta mention:
* A cheap bottle shaking machine for nail polish *will* save you quite a bit of effort for not much money. I don't think i'd ever buy one of those lab-grade shaking gizmos because for that price i can get far more hobby supplies or minis (they're more expensive that most Games Workshop army boxes and that's saying a lot!). But a cheap shaking machine *does* help. Not to mention the one time i did all that shaking for a paint that was *really* precipitated, and had to wait like 20 minutes to start painting because my right hand was *not* stable for a while because of the effort. Jeremy from Black Magic Craft did a review of one of those nail polish shakers and they worked well, so i got one and yes, it does work very nicely, if noisy.
* Dropper bottles. You say it's not worth it and better get other paints and you're (mostly) right (by now i have fewer and fewer Citadel paints). Then GW came out with Contrast paints and their nice washes and other products worth getting. All in those intentionally misdesigned pots. I want to be able to get Nuln Oil without having the risk of giving my desk, clothes and floor a nice black wash. So, Vallejo sells mixing bottles, they come in 35ml capacity, with a graded scale at the side and all, and they can fit a whole pot of the bigger Citadel ones with room to spare. And here's what happens when you tip one (this one i filled with Reikland Fleshshade): i.imgur.com/rNKJWHZ.mp4
And one thing, you dismiss the idea of Citadel paints drying out on those pots, when it's been *thoroughly* documented by almost all of us that those pots are badly designed so that not only they can tip over easily (the tipped pot of wash on the desk is literally a meme now), but that they tend to not close well and therefore get the paint inside dry out. It's a bad mistake to dismiss this when it's not just real, but common. And veterans will very effusively compare them with the older Citadel pots that actually worked, even I who am not *that* old in the hobby have old Citadel pots with paint that still works (Mechrite Red is nice), while i've had 1 year old paints dry on the pot.
And as an aside, i feel dumb for not thinking of rocks as mixing thingies. Gotta check what i can find nearby.
+1 on the Citadel pots, I've had many dry out on me.
Paint doesn't dry out overnight, you do have to check in on your paint from time to time, at LEAST a few times a year. I think the trouble comes from owning too much paint. If you have colors you never touch you shouldn't own them. I stay away from paint sets for this reason, I just buy singular paints when I have a need for them. I also check in often and add thinner or water where necessary.
I have a gnarloc green from early 2000's that is still good. The new paint pots have made me slowly switch to Vallejo plant. Get some matte medium and you can mix up your own contrast paint
But you can just buy the Games Workshop(TM) Paint Pot Holder(TM) to stop it falling over? lol
My lab grade shaking gizmo cost me 40 bucks. And the one in the pic regularly sells for 50 or less. Last year when this vid was released this model mixer was under 30 for many months. eBay for a Vortex Genie 2 mixer
1: Small wooden cubes might be vaguely adequate for small plastic models. They're useless for anything else. They're too small to prevent hand fatigue while painting, they won't stay on their sides with metal models or larger models, and they're harder to find and more expensive than old pill bottles or corks. I use scrap pieces of 1" x 2" lumber about 6" long. They don't stand up vertically especially well, but in every other respect they work extremely well. And I got them for free.
2: Very much agree on both using sanding sticks and buying them from the beauty department. I also use makeup brushes for drybrushing (from the same sources). Cheap and excellent for the purpose.
3: Sets of small drill bits are pretty easy to find (#61 - #80 sets work very well and aren't unreasonably priced). You can get them from hobby stores or by mail order easily. If you're drilling through metal, I would recommend starting with a pilot hole, which seems absurd when you're talking about a final hole that is less than 1mm in diameter, but it really helps. (I replaced the pikes on a couple of hundred 15mm scale pikemen; I have lots of experience here.)
4: Sure, bottle caps would work but you really want to clean them first. I generally do my random mixing on blister-pack backer cards, which work great for all but the most fluid stuff. For that I'll use an old well palette, since I don't use them for anything else these days.
5: Wash bottle is an excellent choice, but I've never (in more than 40 years of painting) found the need to use distilled water for painting. It won't hurt anything, though.
6: Tamiya extra thin cement works well. So does either Acetone or Methyl-Ethyl Ketone, which can be found in your local hardware store in large cans for much less money. (The Tamiya product is just a 50/50 mix of butyl acetate and acetone, btw.) Sprue goo (what you're calling "extra-thick cement") is an excellent thing to keep around.
7: I've used rocks as agitators. I've used hematite beads (which are significantly more dense) as agitators. I strongly prefer 3/0 lead shot or lead sinkers. The extra density makes them work much better. If you have old lead miniatures that you're not looking to use or sell, bits of old minis can work well, too. BTW, never use steel shot, even stainless steel shot, as either one can corrode in your paint.
8: Nothing wrong with that cabinet, but I base my minis with magnets so I can use steel trays to carry them and store them. The magnets dramatically reduce damage in transit. And if you attach the magnets before painting, you can even put a steel billet on top of your painting stick and easily switch models when painting.
9: Strongly agree about super glue. Though I very seldom use it except for assembling PVC models (Reaper Bones, Wizkids, whatever.) Super glue for most bonding jobs is extremely brittle and has little torsional or sheer strength, though it's very good in tension. Epoxy works much better for metal figures, btw.
And the "avoids":
1: Agree unless you're doing a massive assembly job all at once. Super glue has a very limited shelf life, especially once it's been opened.
2: I took a long time to buy a vortex mixer. Buying one is one of the best purchases I've ever made. It makes prepping paint for use unbelievably better. Especially if you're using something like Scale75 paints, the mixer is an arm saver.
3: I really hate pot paints. I don't really use GW paint, for a variety of reasons, but I've moved most of my paints into dropper bottles because they just work better. I bought my bottles in bulk from US Plastics, where I think I paid around $0.36/bottle (including tip and cap, 15cc Boston Round) for a bottle that is better quality than those used by Reaper or Vallejo. And decanting a pot into a bottle is trivial if you pour down a thin rod. The surface tension of the paint will keep the stream adhered to the rod and the pouring is easy. When you get to the end, add some thinner, shake well, and pour the last of the paint out.
I was just coming here to say that if you use Scale75 paints your arm will thank you for buying the paint mixer lol
I’m a noob painter and spruce goo is new to me. My understanding is you basically just shake up some plastic sprues in the cement until it dissolves. Would the resulting compound work to bind resin? Cyanoacrylate sometimes doesn’t seem to bind well enough for some of the 28mm pieces I end up needing to repair, like thin legs that often break due to the brittleness of the resin.
@@gegonut My experience with sprue goo is that it takes a few hours for the sprue to dissolve, though I'm sure that depends on the solvent you use. (I was using Acetone, FWIW.) But yeah, just dump some sprue in the solvent and after a while you have sticky gray (or whatever other color) goo.
I'd recommend using a glass container, because it's embarrassing if you dissolve your bottle. 8-) (There are plastics that will work, but it's not a mistake I'm willing to take a chance on where I don't have to.)
I would definitely not recommend using it for anything but the same polymer. GW plastic parts (and most plastic model kit parts) are polystyrene, which works well with sprue goo. The solvent dissolves a bit of the surfaces you put the goo on and then evaporates from both the surfaces and the goo, leaving behind plastic that is welded together. But resin (or PVC, like Reaper Bones or Wizkids plastic figures) isn't going to weld in the same way, I think. (If you try it and it works, I'd love to hear about it, btw.)
I use superglue for PVC, where it works _great_, but otherwise I seldom use it. It's very strong in tension but in torsion or sheer it's brittle and weak. I use Acetone or MEK for polystyrene (sometimes in the form of sprue goo). I use PVA or wood glue for wood, paper, and ground coverings. And I use epoxy glue with pins where necessary for resin and metals, though I've heard good things about Gorilla glue (which is a polyurethane adhesive with some long-term flexibility) as well.
@@dougsundseth6904 Excellent, thanks so much for the detailed info!
Excellent advise. My cousin is REALLY into the hobby and swears by magnetized bases. has magnetized everything he has as far as I know. His favorite thing besides ease of transport is that on his metal storage shelves he hangs his infantry on the bottom and his vehicles/terrain on top. Though the vehicles are magnetized as well
Also you can buy itty bitty single use tubes of super glue from dollar stores and amazon. Excellent value to keep around for....that guy needs a feather or ...ooops.
I find Army painter quite good I use three brands Vallejo, Army painter and Reaper I use these 3 as I find that some paints of different makes give me different effects ( with less work)
Army Painter paints are like silk. I love them. Wife got me a huge box for Christmas and I love it. I have many brands of paint too, so I know what is up.
The fact that I can spray on a color primer and it's 100% color matched to the equivalent paint saves me an incredible amount of time and instantly makes Army Painter better for me then the other brands
As a beginner I find 50 Army Painter paint set really helpful and my miniatures came out really nice
the only "problem" with Army Painter paints is you MUST. SHAKE. THEM. WELL. which can be made much easier if you add an agitator to them (rocks/stainless steel balls/hematite beads/whatever).
@@druidgamer9735 I found a cheap nail polish shaker helps as well (saves your arms lol)
Lots of the ones online had buyer photos using it for army painter bottles 😂
I moved all of my GW paints (about 40 pots) into dropper bottles and it's the best thing I've ever done for my hobby experience. I didn't use pipettes or funnels, I just added a bit of thinner, shook up the pot, then poured the paint straight into the bottle. A steady hand and some patience is all it takes.
Same here!
Same, transferred the first ca 10 GW pots free hand, with no spillage at all. But got a bunch of tiny funnels after that for a couple of bucks. But since I wash them after use they are reusable. Sure you lose about 1-2ml of paint in the transfer, but it's so worth it.
agreed. Citadel really needs to get rid of the pots.
I did that years ago. You can also stick a toothpick in the bottle and pour along it to avoid spills.
This has saved me tons of time and money over the past 10 years. (No spills or dried up paints)
My mini vortex is one of my favorite tools in my paint arsenal.. it saves so much time and money reviving and keeping my paint fresh. I couldn't disagree with you more
And they don't cost 80 bucks either. Mine was $40 off eBay. The one the pic was used was in the 20's last year to boot when the vid was released.
Mine was £35 and has brought back to life enough of my paints (long break) to make it worth the money.
Love the vortex too, saves so much time and handpain when mixing separated paints perfectly in seconds. I also disagree with droppers. They are meant to prevent gw paint from drying out. 20 years ago the old gw pots (now sold with p3 colors) where ok but the new ones are bad and paints dry out very regulary.
IT's amazing to mix those contrast paint that have white pigment deposits
@@Dedrael81 they're designed to not be air tight. GW are proper dodgy these days.
Army painter is one of the most humble hobby company, also the products works great everysingle time.
Their white primer spray is literally why i bought an airbrush, after it ruined some very expensive and sentimental gifts.
Their products absolutely do not work "every single time".
worst miniature paints on the market. Daylight second.
I will say I’ve owned army painter for 4 years now and they have given me zero problems
learn how to use it, than use it:)
Their products ain't that good. Their paints are useless, especially their Daemonic yellow, its useless.
On the paint mixer, I can say from personal experience that if you are older and have arthritis you will appreciate a paint mixer. Dang young whippersnappers....
My hot tips bases: (emptty) pill bottles with bluetack, glue: revell contacta plastic glue, also citadel paints bottles are ok, if you need just a tiny bit for fixing things, or shading
Same, with $1.50 in freedom quarters bluetacked inside to the bottom for stability
For mixing you could also use small nuts (M5 A4). No clue what the imperial size is but get marine grade stainless steel
Dont buy GW.
I switched to Vallejo a year ago:
1. Very impressed with the colour range and the paint quality.
2. I'm not wasting my time pouring paint from one container to the next.
Hell yeah!! Love Vallejo!
I'd even say: experiment with other brands! Additionally try out oil paints or at least oil washes. Real game changer in terms of panel lining! Cheers!
It might be worth trying Army Painter for horde projects - the fact that I can spray on a color primer and it's 100% color matched to the equivalent paint saves me an incredible amount of time with base painting the basic color schemes
GW has a really good line of paints and solid colors. Their pots are shit, but decanting paints into dropper bottles is not hard. I did over 130 paints this way and it took me a few hours on a sunday afternoon. Also, GW paints are super easy to find in ANY hobby shop. Most places here don't sell the other brands.
@@alcovitch - I’ve almost never seen Citadel paints on sale in a model shop round where I live. But perhaps that’s because I don’t do Warhammer - much prefer scale models and historical wargaming.
The PCB drill bits are one of the best hobby tips I ever received. Ive saved hours of my life over the past year. Thanks Jay.
I have one of those mixing machines, and it is hands down the best thing I have ever bought for the hobby. Not sure why you hate them, but you have obviously not used one. Why spend 30 seconds to a minute shaking a paint, adding wear and tear on your wrist, when you can just press the pot on the mixer for literally a 5 count for the same result? As someone who has had Carpal Tunnel surgery, I would implore you to not tell people these are a waste of money as the act of shaking your paints is just as much a cause of carpal tunnel syndrome as is the painting itself. Less time shaking a paint bottle means a better chance of you not having to have surgery at some point in your life. And yes, I use river rock agitators in my paints like you do as well.
Another good method that can save money is taking the heads off of a massage gun (if you own one) and sticking the caps of your paints in. Works like a dream.
@@ninjapancake9 I use my massage gun for that as well. And it's cheaper than mixing machine too if you're looking to buy some mixer 😂 Well, at least here in Finland it is, even considering Amazon or Ebay. Add a rock or 2 in pots and it'll mix the paint like there's some vortex inside.
I love building models but have arthritic hands and shaking paint hurts so one of my favourite accessory’s is my paint shaker, brilliant and would recommend every day! Having said that I agree with everything else you said, keep it up, great vids.
Your "Don't Buy's" are "Definite Buy's" for me. LOL!
I have several "bottles" of glue; A Gorilla super glue, a Citadel Plastic Glue, and a Testor (?) one I don't use very much. I also have Tamiya Extra Thin and Regular. The "bottled glues" you have so much problem with? Not me. My Gorilla one I've had for about 6 months now...still working just fine, not clogged up, still lots left. I use if for adding small rocks/skulls to bases, or on large models for assembly. Strange you have so much trouble....either I'm just lucky, or maybe it's user error on your part?
..
Nail Polish Mixer for mixing paints. For me, a must have! I have pretty bad Fibromyalgia, which basically means I'm always in pain...and the more I have to shake a bottle of paint, the more pain my hands/arms get, leading to virtually nothing getting done on a mini (or, just as bad, 'shaky' work because of muscle pain/fatigue). All it takes is about four or five "hand shaking" of bottles and my painting session is over. So...yeah...for me, medical reasons. Must have. :)
..
Paint Droppers. Again...for me, must have. Opening my Citadels can get painful. So I bought a hundred bottles or so (I have/had all the GW paints from several years ago). I transferred them manually; I DID try to use a little 'mini funnel', bought a hundred of those too, but the paint was just too thick and took too long to funnel down. In the end, just pouring it by hand into the top was the least messy, easiest, and fastest.
..
Lastly...I find it interesting that you balk at spending $15 to get a bunch of pipettes, paper towels and dropper bottles...but likely have zero problem spending twice that on some GW plastic mini. Just an observation... ;)
...
My "DO NOT BUY!" list would be easy: "Anything made by Games Workshop...if you can find an alternative". Absolutely NOTHING will save you money like moving AWAY from all things GW. Nothing.
So I bought two bottles of Tamiya Extra Thin and now want to make my extra thick. So how much do I put in? What am I looking for here? Maybe a video talking about this one topic?
It’s really not enough to say in an entire vid and you’ll find it’s not rocket science, just practice and preference. You just cut left over sprue into small pieces. Pea sized or smaller ( I use a blade and shave it). The smaller, the faster it desolves and shortens your wait time. Just add some, wait, check if the consistency is what you desire, if not add some more. It works in the regular Tamiya cement as well. It starts off thicker. It’s commonly and lovingly called sprue glue. It’s great as gap filler as well because it basically dries back into plastic.
@@Kal_El_Krypton Thank you for asking this question and thank you for your answer Bryan, I was also curious as I just got two normal Tamiya cements and didn't want to ruin one.
So you aren't good at capping super glue,and you aren't good at looking up the prices of things...
You can somehow always cap GW paints, but super glue is beyond you...odd go man.
I’m with Jay on this one. I’m very careful with cleaning the tip of my super glue container, and never leave the cap off for more than 30 seconds. Don’t think I’ve ever got near finishing a bottle of superglue.
Much better to buy the small containers, which at my local pound shop/dollar store you can have for about three or four small bottles per dollar.
great video! I've been painting miniatures and models since I was 12 years old and am now 60. I have to whole heartedly agree with many of the things you mention with the exception of the paint shaker. I have carpal tunnel and severe arthritis and just can't do the shake anymore. I built, well put together a DIY shaker from an old jig saw and clamp and it worked very good, as long as you clamped the paint in good enough. After many years of using that I finally spent the money and bough one of the vortex mixers. Yes for $100 I could have bought alot of paint or minis but it was necessary and I dont regret it at all!
Yeah, easily his worst point! It just saves so much hobby time and makes it so much easier. Why spend all my time shaking paints when I could be painting?
I was going to comment the same thing. A mixer is a total hand saver for me.
I was wondering if anybody else had the same issue. I tore the ligaments in both wrists and now have degenerative arthritis in both hands and wrists. Shaking the bottles is way too painful. I picked up a Vortex mixer off of Amazon for about 30 bucks and have pain free mixing now.
@@petergreening4810 You got a deal then. I paid a little more than $100 for mine but I bought the bigger one and dont regret it at all
My paints sat in storage for years and hand shaking was not an option.
Vortex mixer restored them all in about a minute per bottle
What you want is the loctite squeezy bottles with the non needle end. The needle tip is great if you want to only use the thing once, but it clogs. the normal tip loctite squeezy fine tip super glue works really really well. I had one for a year and a quater and used it numerous times and it never clogged because of the waxy coating on the plastic tip... i even stored it upside down once and some came out in the cap all you do is get something sharp and scrape it off and your ready to go. The sqeezy sides mean i pick that one every time, using the tubes ive had numerous issues like glueing my fingers to objects and i even had an entire tube rupture in my box and ruin my archimedes drill.
still the greatest glue!
See, you say a vortex mixer is a waste, but don't take into account that 10 seconds on one is about the equivalent of 10 minutes worth of shaking.
I've had bottles of paint from many brands that were separated and I couldn't get them to mix well. A simple ball bearing that was salt water tested for a couple days and then rinsed clean, the vortex mixer and about a minute and it's good as new.
None of the more expensive things are bad, but are definitely quality of life improvements.
I will say that after many years of shaking paint bottles by hand, I got a $25 nail polish shaker off of amazon and the difference is night and day. Throw in an agitator and just let the machine do it's work. It's easier *and* much faster. *CAN* you get your paint fully mixed by hand? Yes. Yes you can. Is it worth the repetitive stress injuries you'll eventually get from doing it that way? No.
@@ColonelSandersLite been my experience for people who say no to a Vortex mixer and say to just shake them have never given a Vortex mixer and honest try.
I love my mixer as well, and I also agree with his point that they are quite pricey. If you have the money to spare, they are a great investment though.
Not just that. The army painter brand is actually pretty good as long as it's mixed properly hence the lab mixers and nail varnish mixers
@@korgunaard4991 $40 ain't costly. Atleast in my book.
HAHA, Like everything else the Test tube shakers... Sorry 'Vortex paint mixers' are not new, I was using the one in my schools science lab to mix model paints 20+ years ago, also used the magnetic stirrer 🤣🤣
When searching for these as any type of paint mixing device, that's already the hobby rebrand!
Test tube mixers marketed at small lab use start at a much more attractive price until you hit the Big Brands! Same as any other cheaper brand there are junk and gems, 35-40$ can get a mixer more than good enough for hobby use imo, variable speed ones are helpful for thicker paints too!
I never realized that super glue was such a problem. Any build up I have around the tip of my Gorilla Super Glue I just take care of with my scalpel. GW overpriced paint pots are a scourge upon this earth and to the hobby as a whole. Get Vallejo paints! Why? Well Vallejo is a paint company so their inventory stays the same GW changes their colors whenever they find a cheaper paint supplier. I have 2 different paint mixers that I love dearly and that I would never part with.
Coat D'arms. Nuff said.
PraetorGix I almost dropped my tax return on buying the entire Coat d’Arms range when I decided to get back into the hobby a few months ago because of the nostalgia of the old old GW paints (I was missing 2 inks from the complete set when they did the change over after going returning to flip lids). In the end I decided to buy a Army Painter set, and variety of Vallejo paints for a fair bit less as a new starting point.
Gorilla glue superglue is good stuff.
Yea I don't get it. I got into warhammer 7 months ago and have a super glue bottle from before that, that I use regularly and its still fine.
I've used my $5 gel Gorilla super glue for dozens of projects now and both the tip and cap are still in great condition. Meanwhile the tips on those $1 tubes go bad almost instantly.
It's more like advice to "just be more resourceful" than actual tips.
I agree that nowadays kids relies too heavily on expensive "modeler" tools.
But small paint mixer cups are dirt cheap when compared to scavenging bottle caps around the house and washing bunch of them.
Just be more resourceful, without going too hardcore and cheap out on everything.
You can make sanding sticks by taping sanding papers to a godam stick. You can use firm q-tips from beauty section instead of buying the super expensive modeler q-tips. Etc.
The vortex mixers are ok I’ve got one to do my paint only because I’m disabled like a lot of model makers so we have to use things like that or make them ourselves
Me too, but the vortex mixer won't work because vibration is a big part of the problem!
@@raspernor11 maybe an orbital shaker plate or microplate shaker might work for you. You can pick them up for similar prices to a vortex mixer if you look around but they're switch activated rather than pressure
I'm sorry, but all these arguments against putting paints from pots into dropper bottles seem silly.
Putting the paint into dropper bottles isn't just about dried out paints, it's convenient too. It's so much easier to use them that way. Citadel paints in pots tend to go bad way quicker. That's a fact! Think about all the different places on earth where people paint. If you happen to live in a very warm and dry climate, your pots will surely die! And if I happen to like a specific paint in a pot very much and love to paint with it, why is it a better idea to stop using the paint completely instead of transferring it into a dropper bottle? That makes no sense at all and it surely doensn't make you a better painter! It really isn't that expensive to transfer paints. I mean in comparison to all the other products we buy.
And if you are worried about all that time it takes to transfer the paints, think about the all time you could save if you had a vortex mixer to shake your paints! THAT is a time saver! You don't have to buy a brand new one. I bought a used one from a lab on Ebay for only 25€ and it works like a charm. I don't need stones in my paints that could potentially break and/or contaminate the paint. I wonder if you have even tried a vortex mixer before you stated that these things are useless.
Last but not least: I started with Army Painter paints. And I had a blast painting with them! They are very beginner friendly imho. You just have to use them the right way, which Army Painter explains often enough (I am talking about getting rid of the excess medium)
You're better off buying the other paints that already come in droppers and drop gw paints all together. I still like the empty paint droppers for custom mixed colors. but that's a small niche.
If you want to see any meaningful change in what paints people buy people need to stop using GW names/paints in tutorials. Personally I just get annoyed trying to figure out what the alternative is to what is being used. I'd rather just get the pot and move it and save myself the time researching color equivalents and then it still being a different shade.
@E Lowe Scale75
@E Lowe they make awesome washes but I don't really think they're the best tbh, prefer Vallejo
Take a look at ProAcryl from Monument.
@@StargazerMan612 they have a great transparent set that went out of stock for a while
I use mostly gamesWorkshop/citadel paints and a lot of them (20-30 pots)dry (Was realy anoying)
the few armypaints i use are good,
and valejo is awesome specialy the airbrush range.
For airbrush nothing beats dropperbottles, cant understand why Gw produced potts for the airbrushrange
I only disagree on the dropper bottles and the Citadel paints, although it's true that it is cumbersome, i dont use funnels nor pippets, for 15€ you have 50 FIFTY bottles, and i use some flow improver and just transfer by tilting the pot, it's thick enough so it doesn't spill, and the flow improver helps getting almost all the paint from the pot. I guess I can say that I'm one of those people that doesn't care to much about cost. For me, citadel paints are awesome, there are some nice tones, vibrant colors and for some minis they go great, and I hate that half my paint dries in the cap, can't close the bottle well enough and it's a pain to put on the palette. They can also be refilled once you buy more, look nicer on my rack, and the added flow improver means I don't need to thin them so much.
I agree, another option to get a Leur Lock syringe with some flat tips you can yeet out the whole pot so quickly. I just clean the syringe and use a new tip (a 100 pack is like $7)
Honestly, the storage benefit alone helped sway me to droppers. It also really helps with me accidentally knocking them over or putting way too much on my pallet.
how did you come up with $15 to move paints into drop containers? It's best to have them already pre-mixed and ready to go. Glass pipets are $12 for about 20 of them and cleaning them is super easy, doesn't matter if paint is fully dried up. The time it takes to mix paint with thinner every time you go to paint something is a pain in the ass. I do scale model cars and sometimes when I have to change 3 times in the same day, it just makes me want to throw everything out. And come on, who uses a full roll of paper towels lol
I can't say enough good things about the paint agitator. I love that thing.
Would disagree will the dropper assment. I moved over around 120 GW paints to droppers. Didnt use anything less then flow improver, steal bearing and a steady hand.
Made 0 mess and took maybe 2hrs or 3 hrs. And the amount of paint I save from having to peal off the pot caps or wipe down the lids from pots. Is well worth the 3hrs and say $15 I spent.
I'm actually about to transfer my pots over to dropper bottles soon. The Citadel ones are designed flawed on purpose. I have pots I've not even opened yet, and they've started to "reef".
Your paint will eventually all dry up in these pots as they're designed to not be air tight so your paint won't last as long, and you'll have to replace it.
GW might make some gorgeous minis, and have some nice colours that are not available by other brands (you could mix them, but some of these mixes are quite complicated for newbies) they have some unscrupulous business practices. I would advise everyone to transfer their paints over to dropper bottles. Just don't cheap put on the dropper bottles too much, or you'll be wasting your time. Also get some vallejo air brush thinner and put a drop in each pot before transferring.
I honestly tried to avoid this practice for years, but it's time. When I have unopened paints that are no more than a year old and have a started to reef, this tells me 100% that the pots are completely flawed.
Now pots like P3 might be fine. They're the older style pots that GW had before they fell to the dark side. And also stuff like washes and contrast paint likely will not dry up as fast. For layer and base paints though I would 100% transfer them. The only way I'd not do this is if I used my paints at an obscene rate and it didn't become an issue.
Disagree emphatically when it comes to vortex mixers. Long term wrist health, saving a hell of a lot of time and keeping paints mixed WAY better than your hands will ever mix them was worth the $60aud my 3e's vortex mixer cost.
Also shaking and mixing via a vortex are inherently different processes.
I love the 10 drawer organizers. My local Michael's frequently has them on sale.
Yes yes yes! I got one for Christmas and it’s so freaking useful
Those definatly don't hold my models...
@@StarFyreXXX sucks for you
One major problem is that open draws are not dust and cat-fur proof.
Just six months to a year and you can guarantee your less-used minis will be covered in a layer of dust.
And much worse if you have a long-haired cat!
@@sirrathersplendid4825 or cat proof period.
This was really excellent. I don't agree with everything but there's a lot here that is so useful. BTW I always UNSCREW the nozzle on my Zap-A-Gap and transfer it to the model with a toothpick. Problem. Solved. But your way is great too! ;)
As someone who just found this channel AND mostly does bigger models, this vid is an immediate sub. Big kudos.
But the REAL mixing machine is to have a young cousin or nephew and say "here shake this".
You can always make your own child for this purpose. It’s quite a lot of fun but can be a lot more expensive than a nail polish shaker.
Dropper bottles from china cost next to nothing. Never used GW paints, but I pour all my Tamiya paints into dropper bottles, pre-thinned. You do not need a funnel, you need a toothpick that you can re-use multiple times if you let it dry up after using. Under a minute to pour and thin a bottle full of paint. Also you can pre-mix colours to have better consistency.
6:38 "Double Crimson Fisting" is a phrase that should not be uttered ever again...
23 years painting - don't need pippete, funnel etc to pour the paints, did it in a couple hours. GW paint pots suck ass. Moving over to vallejo but don't want my paints from GW drying out just from basic use.
GW products are a waste.
Vallejo paints all the way for me, can't stand the GW pots. I'm sure that maybe Ali express may have cheaper bottles than amazon.
I prefer the dropper bottles but... I really really love citadel paints. I wish I preferred Vallejo. I don't want to transfer to droppers because I'm afraid of wasting a ton of paint
What do you have against army painter? Never really had an issue with them. Not my go to but nothing I'd steer someone away from. Been a while since I picked up a brush though. When I was painting regular I liked the Privateer Press line and Coat d'arms.
I've been in the hobby for over 40 years now, and didn't know a lot of these tips. I do learn something new every day! Great video and thanks for the tips.
How much money do you lose when your GW pots go bad? It’s great you don’t have this problem, but I live in the desert, and I do.
As for not using GW paints, I would agree with that, but they are always exception.
hi Jay i'm from Rio de Janeiro and i watch your channel for about 5 years, congratulations on the return of the content it was through him that i started in the universe of minis paintings and in dioramas and terrains.
Glad to have you back watching!!! :)
I never understood why people would buy already expensive citadel paints just to spend more money and time to put them in dropper bottles.
Just buy vallejo or army painter (yes i disagree with you there, army painter is good). Problem solved
When I started many years ago GW Citadel paints came in those little flip top bottles like the P3 paints and those were great. I had GW paints for probably 10+ years with no problems as long as you kept the rim clean. But then they switched to the stubby paint pots with the screw on lids and those were HORRIBLE. I couldn't keep paint for more than a year and even less with some colors before they were dried like a rock! I have a few of the stubbies they have now with the flip tops, but haven't painted in a few years so I don't know how well they hold up. I wish they had never switched away from those original bottles!
MrDrokkul l have been sword (and other weapons) fighting since I was pre-teen, the only callouses I have are from those old GW twist top botttles
As someone just getting into warhammer but has limited experience in model cars rust oluem model master liquid cement is a god send its strong as all hell has a very small precise metal applicator tip and almost never goes bad i bought mine for model cars 4 years ago wiped it off the other day and it bonded parts for my first ever warhammer mini perfectly
I love to have my GW paints in dropper-bottles. If you buy a funnel out of glas (4€ ~ 4$ on amazon) you can keep on using it since you can clean it with water.
Also i invest some more time into prep and save some time during painting, since i have the paint prethinned to my prefered basecoat straight out of the bottle and i dont have to thin it on my pallet. Also its way easier to put on my pallet in the first place.
Additionally if you knock over a dropper bottle it leaves almost no mess, if you kock over an open GW-pot you have paint everywhere.
Don't buy ballbearings, buy cleaning balls. You get 1000 for about 7€. It is a lifetime supplie
First time i hear about those "cleaning balls", searched and it looks like the search phrase you want to use is "decanter cleaning balls", they're stainless steel and at about the right size, nice find!
Plastic bottles on aliexpress are two bucks for 10 psc. Droppers are 1 buck per 10. Amazon is just always a ripoff same shitty product for three times the price.
The citadel files are diamond coated steel. One coarse and one fine. Ive had really good luck with these files with plastic. They seem to be a much finer grain than nail files even the extra fine grit ones. Worth the cost for what they are.
Whats wrong with steel files on plastic, thats what i used. I assume they're plastiic its the gw blightlord terminators
I don't get it too, honestly. I don't really use files now almost at all, cause I usually adept enough to scrape/carve what I need with design knife and for really big areas I use sandpaper covered surfaces, but I used files ALOT back in the days. I even nailed down a solid piece of sprue to make it look like Jet from Fallout in something like 1:32 scale.
Usually the tooth profile on metalworking files is too aggressive for (plastic) miniatures, resulting in badly scratched and gouged platic. You may have fine toothed files.
@@xjunkxyrdxdog89 well obviously you use fine tooth on that. Like you don't use 60 sandpaper for polishing a wooden doorknob - you don't use few millimetre toothed files to work with plastic.
sorry got to disagree i use steel files religiously when building to get rid of bits like mould lines and it depends on your file. i find that a small cylindrical file with a spiral works and doesn't leave scratches but a file with a diamond pattern is more likely to leave scratches.
Lol ‘maybe I am just careless but the superglue in a bottle dries when I forget to put the cap on’ I find that hilarious thank you for unintentionally making me laugh
I put my citadel washes in dropper bottles . Saved loads of money from knocking them over.👍🏽
I always end up having those little tubes explode on me when I put the caps on, it's always an epic fail, lol. Ax Anax Tabletop Gaming has a great video on transferring paint into dropper bottles, it's definitely worth the minimal work if you prefer painting from dropper bottles and already have many GW paints in the pot or are addicted to buying those sweet miniature+paint sets like me.
But you lose like 25% of your citadel paint if you leave it in its container, it's just going to dry and cake on the sides, so it is better to move them into dropper bottles.
I keep my old GW pots as mixing pots, moving over to Vallejo was the best decision I made in my hobby career. I did buy some dropper bottles but only because I was making my own contrast paints, which in the long run can save quite a substantial amount of model buying pennies
Always a question of cost definitely get a wet pallet and Brushes..!
Droppers for airbrush mixtures not needed for a brush painter
Don't put rocks into your paints, they will react with the minerals. That's absolutely insane.
What will happen? really? unless it's pure iron, it will be fine.
Army painter is great. And good for budget painters. If not for their paints their brushes are some of the best. Much better than GW's trash brushes.
Great video.
I like the little tube of wood(TM) idea. I tend to use 30-year-old bottles of dried up Testors paints, but I know you young whippersnappers don't all have access to those.
So, you blame the bottle when you forget to put the cap back on...
Did you hear yourself at all when you were recording that?
Contact lens cases - the kind with screw on lids, can keep that custom blend moist longer than recycled bottle caps.
My dropper bottles cost £0.17 each, so 30 bottles for $7, well worth it. The GW paints I transferred over were from the very early 90's and I only had half a dozen out of 40+ that were no good after being stored in the attic all those years, so that says something in GW favour. Vallejo and Pro Acryl all the way, although GW do make some amazing washes.
Really paint has no reason to go bad, only dry out. If the dried pigment changes color over the years in a paint pot then that’s what’ll do on your model, which is a big no no. It does show they were using good pigments even back then, which is nice. Though it doesn’t say much to their quality overall and more to how stable pigments are in general, which can never be understated
Wow, how much sublimable mesaging 3:19 might wana put these in fewer fps, as they will show less😉
80 dollars for a vortex mixer isn't expensive. It's skipping one new box of units, and never add rocks to your paint. You're just adding grit to your paint that will ruin your paintbrushes. Also, I've moved ever Base, Layer, Contrast and Shade paint over to dropper bottles. It took me maybe 2 days total, but has saved me countless hours struggling with paint pots.
Yeah paint pots are Satan, not sure how anyone can use them. Droppers just make everything so much easier
Omg using stones for shaking paint, MIND BLOWN 😂 thank you Bro!!
People always over complicate it....just use a ROCK!
NO NO NO! WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT 😮😣😭😭😭😭
Army painter paints are great, you’re crazy lol
Army Painter paints need more mixing than usual so I guess it catches most people out who only give them a shake, you need to get into the bottle and stir to get the best results.
@@VeggieManUK mixing with a stick works but so does 2/3 mixing balls. They worked good before I shook them properly but now they work amazing with proper mixing
This guy saying not to buy a mixer machine pffft my carpal tunnel says otherwise.
Great video my friends! I use the small wooden cubes for painting and plinths too. I’m with you on most except of course the dropper bottles haha. It was worth it to to transfer it over but I mainly did it for storage purposes. I use essential oil cases to store my paints and I got a crazy deal on dropper bottles on eBay ($20 for 300) and they came with 30 funnels too. I did all of the transferring in a couple of hours while I had painters block and I still felt the need to do something hobby related. It’s all personal preference though.
Again great work! I’m enjoying the new narrative format.
Glad you're enjoying the new format! It is for sure up for personal preference just our two cents :)
I just transferred all of my Citadel and Tamiya paints to bottles... It is time and money, but you might weigh that against space, organization, and paint control. It cost me about $40 for 50 dropper bottles and a transfer kit, and it took me two days to transfer 10 Citadel colors and 40 Tamiya colors. It was a hassle but I think I'm better off for it now. I'll need to buy more bottles as I start to expand my collection as I start to get into Warhammer and D&D minis...
small rocks. genius.
edit: "don't buy #1" = seriously, this is so wrong. You'll waste much more paint using GW pots (and knocking them over - hello nuln oil -) than getting dropper bottles. Also, your prices are wrong AF. Get those bottles from wish or aliexpress for the cheapest, amazon is overpriced af. I paid mines 0.05€/each shipping included...
That last point is so true GW won't change the containers till people stop buying them
Re: mixing machines: I brought a nail polish mixer on Amazon for about $30 CAD. Since I paint with Army Painter, it seem to make big difference, particularly with new paints
Literally using that same bottle of super glue right now. It’s awful.
I respectfully disagree with literally everything you said.
you wouldn't mix paints and glues in a plastic cap?
Legit moved 100 paints from gw to droppers. At the cost of £10 including the funnels I reuse to move paint and the shaking balls. If you don’t want to spend the money fair but if you want to then go for it.
The thing about vortex mixers... I can manage maybe half an hour to an hour a week to paint at the moment. Without mine, I'd spend all that time manually mixing paint.
I buy 2 oz bottles of superglue, they last a long time. the same company sells replacement tips in bulk, I have a stash of them. whenever the tip on my bottle goes bad, I simply replace it. WAY cheaper than buying in small tubes.
I haven't tried the new "contrast" stuff but Citadel paints have always been hot garbage. Way too thick, poorly bound pigment, poorly designed jars (it's not just you that can't get the back closed), strange color range, and over priced.
I have about 300 paints and maybe four are Citadel products. I find I like the flat matte finish I get from Reaper paints the best.
FYI or rather PSA.
Got a Vortex Mixer for $25 off AliExpress, works like a champ, actually got to use Scale75 more often now since I don't have to shake the crap out of em for two minutes
Thanks for all these tips!
The only mess I’ve ever made was with a clogged dropper bottle whose tip just blew out when I pressed the bottle and paint spilled all over my desk.
GW pots aren’t half as bad as people say. Close them right after you’ve taken your paint and you’ll never spill any. Remove the dried paint around the lid often and make sure the cap clips all the way around and the paint will not dry.
The only problem I have with them is that you need a brush for transferring them to a palette.
Droppers are nice. But I agree that transferring all my GW pots to droppers is a waste of my precious hobby time.
Just my two cents.
Cheers everyone. Happy hobbying!
WE COMPLETELY AGREE!
My Bottle Of Super Glue Literally Cracked In Half.
great tips 👍
@6:45 nail polish shaker 👌 cheap and easy to use
The transferring paints from GW pots to dropper bottles is the stupidest fad in the hobby right now. The arguments are completely devoid of logic too.
"Allows for more accurate measuring/mixtures!" No it doesn't. One small brush full and one drop are about the same. Furthermore, you work on a wet palette (or you don't belong in the hobby), so measurements aren't relevant.
"The GW caps get gunked up with paint!" And the dropper bottles get clogged tips. Also, the pigment and liquid tend to separate in a dropper bottle, and it's much more difficult to reconstitute than in a pot.
"But you can put a ball bearing/pebble in the dropper to mix it!" You can put one in a pot too.
"But...but the dropper means less wasted paint!" No it doesn't. Again, one small brush = a drop. And if you're working on a palette, you aren't going to waste paint anyway because it will last the life of the project.
The transfer to dropper bottles is cost and time inefficient. People are doing it now because...other people are doing it now. They adopt an elitist mentality about it and it isn't aiding their hobby at all.
YES! You are a scholar!! I have a cheeky theory it’s also because people like to avoid doing the actual “work” of painting their models so they use the excuse that this will help them be a better painter instead of just doing it.
Counter Points:
1. They never spill unless you squeeze them way to much. If it gets clogged....push pin. Or pin vise if you're super worried about a tiny nugget of dry paint going in the bottle.
2. They never dry up. All paint separates, no matter what container, however a dropper doesn't allow air/evaporation.
3. Poking the tip with a pin is a hell of a lot easier than cleaning up the crusties on a pot lid.
4. I've never flung paint from a dropper bottle like I have on the seemingly springloaded lid of a GW, P3, Coat d'Arms or other attached lids.
5. If pots are so great, why is the industry moving away from them.
6. You might transfer a drop in your brush, but you just wasted a bunch to you water pot as you cleaned it. Other tools are better for transferring from a pot. Droppers are even easier.
7. You don't need a bunch of stupid stands, blue tack or other devices to ensure your pot never tips over.
8. You don't need any special equipment to transfer to a dropper bottle. I transferred the few I've done with nothing but a little drink stirrer from Starbucks.
9. You don't need to reconstitute paint from a dropper because of Number 2. All of us who have painted with pots have had to do it at one point or another. Whether that was GW, P3, or even old Ral Partha.
10. Dropper bottles themselves are cheap. And if you aren't spending money on stuff to transfer them (although that syringe technique sounds awesome), this really isn't an issue. Even if the bottles aren't super durable, it's not like it costs much to replace one. Honestly, it's going to be the tip you'll ever need to replace anyway. Spend an extra buck for better bottles? It's way cheaper in the long run than cleaning up and re-purchasing that next bottle of Nuln Oil you spilled.
11. Finally, if this is a fad, why are there literal petitions to GW to package their product this way and ditch pots? If you don't want to do it, no worries! But don't act like there aren't legit reasons for it, not everyone is a fan boy, some just like that for practicality it's just better.
You should definitely move your citadel paint to droppers. The five minutes it takes outweighs the dried paint lost.
five minutes? for how many paints?